Interpol Special Agent

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In reality, the International Criminal Police Organization — the ICPO or Interpol — acts as liaison among the national police forces of member countries, maintains a database on international criminals, and writes (along with the FBI) those "pirating this movie is illegal" messages/PSAs that get removed in the pirated versions of films anyway. In other words, they don't do any direct investigation or prosecution themselves; they simply facilitate communication between agencies in different countries.

In fiction, Interpol acts more like U.N.C.L.E. and sends agents (normally solo), who somehow have full power over local police, out to track down and capture international criminals. One reason for this trope is that everyone knows Interpol is "international police" and it avoids the need to create a group wholesale, even if that means fudging what they actually do.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Inspector Zenigata of Lupin III is an Interpol agent; oneversion of the gang'sorigins explicitly has another character suggest that he join to pursue Lupin across the globe more easily. The local cops vary in their response to his commands: sometimes he's an unwanted distraction from their duties, other times he has their full collaboration, and in one particular occasion he goes around the world with a small army of Japanese policemen directly under his command.

Portrayed more accurately in Death Note: Interpol are seen near the beginning as a group of police representatives from various different nations discussing the recent spate of deaths of renowned criminals and forming a consensus of whether or not they should contact L, and once L demonstrates that the perpetrator is based out of Japan the case is entirely within the jurisdiction of the N.P.A. (albeit with L calling on resources from the F.B.I. at one point).

Possibly justified in Gunslinger Girl. Hillshire Hartman met Triela during his job as an investigator for Europol, the localized version of Interpol. He was acting outside his jurisdiction though and got fired, ending up as Triela's handler in the SWA.

Comic Books

Bernard Prince, a Franco-Belgian Comic whose title character is a retired Interpol Special Agent; some stories feature flashbacks to his time as one.

Darkholders from Marvel Comics stars one of these, agent Sam Buchannan. Partly justified in that in the comics, Interpol has degenerated to little more then a devil cult.

In Lord of War, Interpol agent Jack Valentine pursues the illegal Arms Dealer main character. They're so powerful that his team is shown bossing ex-Soviet soldiers around, which in reality would just get them all shot. Oddly, late in the film the Villain Protagonist refers to US President as being the Valentine's boss, and uses contacts in the US military to get himself released when Valentine has arrested him, so one wonders if Agent Valentine switched jobs at some point.

Both Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Terror of Mechagodzilla have Interpol agents as main characters. However, worth noting is they act somewhat realistically as their mission was to investigate the alien invasion presently going on and intervene if needed instead of taking full control. Still doesn't stop them from directly fighting said alien invasion though.

In Hitman, Hero Antagonist Mike Whittier and his partner are Interpol agents. Particularly notable in that a recurring plot point is their Jurisdiction Friction with agents of the FSB, despite the fact that they are investigating the attempted assassination of the Russian President - in Russia!

Now You See Me has Alma Dray as a more realistic portrayal, having previously worked exclusively at a desk and only tagging along with the FBI in order to catch the Four Horsemen because of their Teleporting Bank Robbery trick.

Literature

There's a friendly Interpol officer whom Tom Swift Jr. summons from time to time to arrest international bad guys; apparently they're out of the local cops' jurisdiction somehow.

Live Action TV

In Leverage, Interpol has enough prestige that a fairly senior insurance executive can become an agent and consider it a step up in his career. Word of Godsays, "Interpol in the Leverage-verse is not this world's Interpol. It is, basically, S.H.I.E.L.D.. Or maybe U.N.C.L.E.. It's the law-enforcement all-star team."

Special Agent Emily Prentiss of Criminal Minds is a former Interpol undercover operative.

The show Crossing Lines goes one further by having an elite force of cops from the International Criminal Court investigating cross-border crime in Europe. The International Criminal Court deals with crimes against international law (in other words serious war crimes and genocides committed by governments and quasi-governments), has no police force of its own, and even if it had, would not get involved with ordinary crime, no matter how serious or high-profile.

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth puts this trope to work, as a series of domestic incidents Edgeworth is investigating turn out to be connected to an international smuggling ring, justifying Interpol's involvement. Agent Shi-Long Lang, his assistant Shih-na, and his hand-picked team of one hundred Men in Black feature heavily in the resolution of the story, and established character Franziska von Karma is also involved as an Interpol consultant.

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